Three Waive Rights To Hearing

NEW BRITAIN — Two 18-year-old women and a 21-year-old man charged with killing an 89-year-old Bristol man during a September robbery waived their rights Monday to a hearing.

Attorneys for Herbert White, his cousin Anastacia Gallup and the third defendant, Dalitza Alejandro, told Superior Court Judge Joan K. Alexander in New Britain that the state need not try to prove it has sufficient evidence to proceed with the cases.

The three, who have entered not guilty pleas to felony murder and other charges, are due back in court next month.

Nearly a dozen relatives of the defendants were present Monday.

It was not clear if there was any family present for the victim -- Frank Talerico, a bachelor who moved to Bristol from West Virginia in 1941 and worked at the New Departure factory, retiring in 1972.

Police say Talerico was attacked because he ran a small-time check-cashing business out of his apartment in the same Main Street building where Gallup and Alejandro lived.

Talerico was beaten Sept. 24, when he was returning home from the hospital after being treated for injuries he suffered in a previous attack. He died Oct. 2 from head injuries received in the Sept. 24 attack.

Police allege White punched Talerico, knocking him to the floor. Talerico's cash-stuffed wallet was stolen, along with a bag of personal belongings.

White planned the attack with Gallup and her roommate Alejandro, according to court records.

Talerico had been robbed or his apartment burglarized eight times since 2000 before the fatal attack. Police said they had tried in vain to discourage the elderly man from continuing check cashing, as it made him a mark for crime.

Police said the fatal robbery began to take shape when Alejandro learned from a neighbor that Talerico was returning Sept. 24 from the hospital. He'd been admitted overnight Sept. 23 because of injuries suffered in an earlier, apparently unrelated robbery.

According to court documents, Alejandro waited for Talerico outside their building and offered to help the man up the stairs. As they reached the second floor, White attacked, police said.

Police say that after the robbery, Gallup used Talerico's ATM card to get $300 from a teller machine at Bristol Ten Pin on Farmington Avenue.

Later that day, Alejandro, Gallup, White and Jessica Torres of Hartford took a taxi to Hartford. There, Gallup tried to use the credit card to get cash from an ATM machine at a People's Bank branch on Park Street. Pictures taken with a surveillance camera showed Torres was with Gallup when she tried to use the card. The transactions were denied, and no money was obtained.

White faces additional charges of attempted murder and attempt to tamper with a witness. A warrant shows he tried to hire a fellow inmate at Hartford Correctional Center to kill Gallup and Alejandro to silence them after his arrest in Talerico's death.

Attorneys involved in the case declined to comment Monday on why their clients decided at the last minute to forgo their right to the hearing. Prosecutors had lined up witnesses who were prepared to testify.

In such hearings, damaging evidence can be entered into evidence at trial if a case reaches that stage. This can be helpful if a witness can't be located when the trial begins, in some cases months or years after the hearing has occurred.